Los Angeles researchers yesterday appealed to Israel for enough polio vaccine to conduct a new AIDS study after a Pocono manufacturer stopped supplying the substance.

Meanwhile, AIDS groups in San Francisco, New York and Los Angeles sought to understand why thousands of United States AIDS suffers are being denied the polio vaccine for AIDS treatment. The vaccine has shown promise not as a cure for AIDS, but in relieving symptoms of the deadly disease.

A scientific study planned to start in Los Angeles today is expected to shed some light on how the vaccine - normally given once to prevent polio - can help people fight AIDS, a disorder that destroys the body's immune system.

However, researchers there will have to start the study without the substance it's meant to test.

Connaught Laboratories in Swiftwater, the only U.S. maker of the older injectable polio vaccine, stopped shipping it to California doctors after learning of its use as an experimental AIDS treatment.

Connaught, based in Toronto, also restricted the national distribution of its new, improved vaccine after consulting with the Federal Drug Administration.

In both cases the company stopped supplying doctors using the substances for AIDS-related work, but not for polio prevention, said Connaught spokeswoman Beth Waters.

The decision - apparently reached in conjunction with the FDA and based on laws governing drug use - added kindling to a national debate on the handling of AIDS treatments.

It also raised questions about Connaught and the FDA's roles in ultimately denying doctors the opportunity to prescribe drugs for their patients, according to AIDS activists.

"In the past, doctors had the option of using the vaccine (for AIDS)," said Jay Lipton, a lawyer for one New York City AIDS group. "What Connaught has done is they have foreclosed that option."

The Los Angeles study, being conducted by UCLA and Los Angeles County, was to begin as scheduled today with the selection of participants.

Researchers hope to document the effect of the vaccine on AIDS victims over at least six months. For several years, private doctors have been prescribing the vaccine to thousands of AIDS victims across the country.

Dr. Allen Allen, a California research scientist and co-developer of the experimental treatment, said yesterday he requested 4 liters of the vaccine- enough for the study - from Israel through its Washington embassy.

The FDA prohibits the interstate sale of drugs for non-approved uses. Polio vaccines, although they have relieved cancer lesions, herpes infections, swollen lymph nodes and fatigue in AIDS patients, have no federal approval as an AIDS treatment.

Connaught's Waters, reacting to criticism from AIDS groups and Allen, said that the company saw only one course of action.

"We must meet the law and we must defer to the FDA on this. We don't have any choice. It's not a matter of option, it's a matter of law," she said.

An FDA spokesman who requested anonymity agreed with Waters and praised the company for coming to the agency.

"The question was whether a pharmaceutical company can promote a drug for an unapproved use," the spokesman said.

Connaught could have found itself in an "uncomfortable ethical position" and possibly in violation of the law by supplying the doctors with vaccine for AIDS cases, he said.

"Any kind of significant shipment . . . would have put them in an uncomfortable ethical position, and we agreed with that," the FDA spokesman said.

AIDS activists and at least one California researcher yesterday decried the restrictions on the vaccine and blamed Connaught, not FDA regulations.

They described the practice of doctors prescribing non-approved drugs as routine, and suggested it was a natural part of the practice of medicine.

On Friday, Allen charged that Connaught is withholding the old vaccine in an attempt to guarantee revenues from the new one.

Although doctors reported success in prescribing the old vaccine, the company wanted the new one used in the California study, he said.

Allen claimed that patent rights would prohibit other companies from sharing Connaught's profits from the new vaccine if it proved successful in fighting AIDS. The old vaccine has become part of the "public domain" and cannot be patented.

Waters denied Allen's claims Friday and again yesterday, and said Allen's statement that Connaught held a patent on the new substance was incorrect.

"The company was impugned by the implication that because they have a patent, they're pushing one treatment over another," she said.

The company has not patented the product but did receive federal approval to manufacture it in November, she said.

Moreover, she repeated that the company had no preference on the use of the two vaccines.

Because relatively large doses of the medication are needed in AIDS treatment, Allen said, Connaught could track the vaccine's use through its sales to individual doctors.